Masks Are Only Skin Deep
by BlackCatPen
Summary: Lily is one of the 'unpopular' kids. She keeps to herself and James is there to help her. Better than it sounds. Please R/R.


"_**You find I'm even better than you imagined I would be. I'm on my guard for the rest of the world, but with you, I know it's no good."**_

_**I was listening to **__**Spark's Fly **__**by Taylor Swift and I got the idea for this. Don't worry, I'm still working on Now Or Never, it's not finished yet. Enjoy this little fanfiction.**_

Bookworm. Over-achiever. Stuck-up. Fun sucker. Stick in the mud. Rule-follower. Those are just a few of the, uh, nicer, terms that the kids like to use to describe me. My name is Lily Evans. I'm Head Girl, and the object of James Potter's torment. Most girls wouldn't describe it like that. He was a Marauder, and one of the most popular guy's in school. He was also deemed a 'hottie' by the entire female student body at Hogwarts. He was constantly asking me out, being immature, and just plain annoying.

Enough about James Potter. I was called every name that amounted to nerdy under the sun. And some people weren't so nice about it. The names didn't bother me; I knew that they didn't mean anything to me. It was just an act; sure, I was a little bookish and I did like to study, but nowhere near the amount I actually did.

My 'friends' didn't really know that I wasn't at all what I pretended to be. I hung out with the quieter kids, and, through a well-trained eye, I saw the masks they all wore. They loathed studying, hated being the quiet kids, and the ones everybody made fun of. They were tired of the 'popular' kids book-checking them in the halls on their way to class. They were tired of the giggling that was sure to ensue after a teachers' praise on a homework essay well done, or answering a question correctly in lessons. And even though they hated when it was about them, they were gossip-whores just like everyone else.

A piece of gossip in Hogwarts spread in about an hour, and if it was particularly juicy, it took even less time. I personally tried to stay away from the rumor mill, as it brought nothing but trouble. On any occasion the information was often misconstrued and usually hurt whomever it was about. All too often I found a girl crying in the bathroom stalls. I rubbed her back and let her cry herself out on my shoulder.

As Head Girl, I had my own common room that I shared with the Head Boy. Who, incidentally, was James Potter. It was like my entire life seemed to loop back to him, and I was in no way thrilled by that revelation. It used to be that I could fade into a dark corner of the Gryffindor common room and avoid his attention. Now, as the common room was meant for just us, my only escape had become my dorm room. I was beginning to feel like a hermit, staying up there all the time.

As much as I liked to complain to myself about James Potter, I was different around him. Yet, when he was hanging out with Sirius, Remus, and Peter, I was tense and took the first opportunity to escape. But Sirius had some sixth sense and it was rare that I got out of the common room easily. They brought out my temper that I had spent years trying to suppress.

"Lilykins! Where are you going, babe?" Sirius yelled one day after he caught me trying to sneak up the stairs to my room.

"Damn." I muttered. "Leave me alone, Black."

"Come now, Flower, don't make a scene."

"If you don't stop calling me anything but Evans, I will give you a Broadway musical." I hissed through my teeth.

"What's a Broadway?" He asked. I sighed, he was a pureblood and wouldn't have any idea what Broadway was. There went my clever retort.

"Never mind." I sighed again. I then usually subjected myself to the torture of having to sit in the common room with them until the next class, a meal, or they finally left. All to often I fell asleep in the common room after many failed escapes.

Yet, when it was just Potter and I in the common room, I felt more at ease. I found myself laughing at his jokes and showing my personality, my _real _personality, more and more. I allowed myself to open up, even if just a little. I found myself telling him stuff that I normally kept locked up inside. But there was a reason I was how I was.

One day, I was sitting with Sirius, Remus, Peter, and James at lunch one day as they were remembering their first year. I knew that it was a mistake when they brought it up. There was too much hurt remembering first year for me. I was different back then, it was the beginning of second year that I became more subdued.

Sirius' bark-like laugh filled the space around us. "Do you remember that prank we pulled on Filch two months into first term?"

"Of course! We got to kick his brand-new cat! Mrs. Norris was it?" Remus had a mischievous glint in his eye that was a misconception to his bookish appearance.

"Ah, good times, good times." James said leaning back a little.

"Hey, Moony, Prongs, do you remember that McChrome girl? What was her name?" Sirius' brow furrowed as he tried to remember. I let my eyes drop to the plate of food in front of me that was suddenly very unappetizing.

"Acantha. Acantha McChrome." I whispered. I could already feel the tears cropping up. I bit my lip and tried to hold back the tears.

"That's it! What ever happened to her?" He asked, obliviously ignorant of my watery eyes.

"She was… she was…" A tear rolled down my cheek. "She was… excuse me, I have to go… study." I shook my head and stood up. Sirius grabbed my arm.

"Hey, where you going sweetheart?" He said smirking. I yanked my arm out of his grip the tears were rolling down silently. I kept my gaze to the floor.

"Just let me go." With that I ran out of the Great Hall, not noticing the footsteps following me all the way to the Head dorm.

I sat down by the fire, dangerously close to the glowing embers. I reached out a hand, watching it grow closer and closer to the flames. I wanted to feel them licking and tickling my hand, I wanted to watch it burn and blacken. Someone jerked me away from the fire.

"What do you think you're doing? You could really hurt yourself that way." James' voice said worriedly from behind me.

"That's the point, isn't it?" My voice was thick with tears. "I know you've come to tell me that Sirius didn't mean it, that he was just being an idiot. It doesn't matter though, because whether it was intentional or not, it still hurt. It still brought back old memories." I sniffed. "You've no idea who she was, do you? Or what she was to me?" I turned and looked straight into his anxious hazel eyes.

"I have an idea." His world-weary voice was unbefitting his young appearance. "She was here in first year, wasn't she?" I made no inclination of whether this information was true or not. "She was your best friend." He said this so bluntly and accurately, that I became frozen sitting cross-legged on the floor. "You guys did everything together, you even planned on being Maids of Honor at each others wedding. You were different back then, so full of life and energy, but after school ended and you both went home for the summer, something happened. Some Ministry wizards visited you and they told you that she had been murdered. And you were devastated. Did I get that right?" He cocked his head to one side his eyes told me he knew he was right.

"If you already knew, then why did you ask?"

"I wanted to hear you say it."

"Fine, she was my best friend. And her family was deemed as 'blood traitors', Voldemort didn't like that, so he murdered them, her entire family! Her mom, her dad, her older sister and husband that were visiting that week, all dead!. Bloody hell, he even killed her baby sister! Andrea was 3 months old! Where do you justify anyone killing a baby? Now, are you happy? Yes, I was devastated when I lost her. You heard me say it, so leave me alone. Please." The tears flowed freely down my face, staining my cheeks with tear tracks. I heard his footsteps, but I wasn't expecting it when I felt his arms wrap around my body. He laid his cheek on the top of my head.

'Shhh… shhh… it's okay. It's okay." James murmured in my ear. I buried my head in his chest. "You don't have to pretend any more. Just let it all out." I sobbed even harder, soaking his t-shirt. I'm not sure how long we sat like that for, but after a while my body stopped shaking and I stopped crying.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yeah, I am. Thank you." I told him.

"Your welcome."

"Let me go clean up, I want to apologize to everyone else." I went up to the bathroom we shared and washed my face. I pulled my long hair back into a ponytail and glanced at my reflection in the mirror. I seemed presentable enough; so I went back down to find that Sirus and Remus were already there.

"Hey." Sirius said awkwardly.

"Hi." I took a deep breath. "I want to apologize for earlier. Acantha is still a bit of a touchy subject for me. She was my best friend, and Voldemort killed her entire family." I sniffed. "It was the summer before second year." My eyes started to tear up, but before I knew it I was enveloped in a group hug consisting of all the guys and me in the middle. I felt so comforted at that moment that I stopped crying and started laughing. I got four equally confused looks.

"I'm just so glad to have you with me right now." I giggled.

"Lily, I'm sorry that I said that. I didn't know that you were that close to her. I hope that maybe we can still be friends?" Sirius asked.

"It's okay. And of course we can be friends, but on one condition."

"What?"

"You have to help me prank James and Remus."

He smirked. "Deal."

"Lily, do you have any idea what you just did?" Remus asked mildly terrified.

"Yeah," I smiled. I was kind of surprised that they accepted me so fast. "I just created a monster." We all laughed at that. "I also showed you who I really wish I could be." I whispered, and at the time, I hadn't realized that James had heard me. It turned out to be the best thing that ever happened to me.

That's when I realized that you couldn't always judge someone by the mask they wear in public. You never know who they really are when there was no one to impress, or when there was no one that could make fun of them. I also found out that no matter what you think everyone has a mask. Whether they use it to protect a reputation or if they use it like I did, as protection for my heart. Some people open up more than others and some may need a crowbar to get beneath all the armor, but eventually, someone will come along, and they will get past the armor and lodge themselves in their heart. That's what I call love.

**3 **


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